


Weak Ankles

by thecompletebookworm



Series: Rumbelle Showdown [5]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Ballet AU, F/M, Rumbelle Showdown 2017, Young Baelfire | Neal Cassidy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-23
Updated: 2018-04-23
Packaged: 2019-04-26 16:46:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14406294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecompletebookworm/pseuds/thecompletebookworm
Summary: Prompts: Ballet AU, Young Baelfire, Ticket to nowhereBelle needs to practice if she's ever going to actually make it big in the dance world after an injury. She can't afford to be distracted, no matter how cute those distractions may be.





	Weak Ankles

It was with trepidation that she stood before the mirror, laced into her pointe shoes. It seemed so simple to just dance again, to relevé to her tiptoes and recreate memories of when she was twelve and her mother laughed as she stumbled like a gazelle in her first pair.  It was the moment every little girl waited for, the moment when your teacher decided technique was good enough to try pointe, that you wouldn’t break anything.

Belle almost laughed at the irony.  She hoped the twinge in her ankle was only in her imagination.  She needed to be ready.  She couldn’t let it stop her two years in a row.

Still it had been months, months the doctors had deemed necessary to heal, but it had set her back.  Belle was already on the upper side of the age range for a professional ballerina. Granted she was only 20, but when the average retirement age was 29, her career was on a road to nowhere. This year was her absolute last chance.  After that she would have aged out of the third division of the American Ballet competition, and without a famous teacher to recommend her, her chance of success was way lower than that of finding her true love in this godforsaken town.

Pushing that thought out of her head, Belle marched over to the old CD player and pressed play. As soon as the music started, it was like she had a purpose again.  Her heart was leaping far quicker than the beat from her section of Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty. A flourish signaled her first leap to the right, her feet darting back and forth under her in almost imperceptible steps until she left the floor entirely.  Her eyes darted toward the mirror; she wasn’t wearing her typical smile instead a look of pure dread. That wouldn’t do she knew and Belle forced her lips to curl upward for the imaginary audience. Still, she had landed her first leap; that was an encouraging start at least.

For the next section of her routine, Belle felt absolutely unstoppable, graceful in the way she only ever felt in her ballet shoes. You would never be able to tell she broke china almost weekly. But this was different; it was like flying or becoming someone else entirely.  This other person could be graceful, enchanting in the ways Belle always wished she could be.  

By the end of the song with only a few moves left, Belle’s fear had left her.  She flew unbidden into her last pirouette, this one on her left foot.  Her good foot pushed off the ground hard and snuck it’s way up her leg until she was spinning.  One turn, two.  The goal was at least six.  Her arms tightly connected over her head.

Her gaze lingered on the mirror as she tried to prevent herself from being dizzy.  That was when she noticed it: Both the shooting pain in her foot and the shadowed figure in the back of the room. Belle stumbled out of the pirouette.  Her good foot coming down hard, trying to alleviate the stress of her body weight as quickly as possible.  

“Why’d you stop?” The voice was young. A curly haired head popping out from the shadows. “You had enough energy for two more turns at least, I mean I think you did. I can’t do more than three yet and Papa won’t let me on pointe but I assume…”  The words continued in their rapid-fire way, too quickly to understand anything, let alone figure out why he was here.  

“Um, I’m sorry but who are you?”  Belle asked trying to keep any annoyance out of her tone.  He couldn’t be more than seven.  He wouldn’t understand how many shifts at her father’s flower shop it had taken her to secure a private room in the Storybrooke Community Center.

The little boy offered out his hand. “My name’s Baelfire, but my friends call me Bae. Can we be friends?”

The question came out of nowhere.  But Belle couldn’t stop herself as she looked at his puppy dog eyes.

“Yes, we can be friends but you’re going to need to leave. I really need to practice.”

“I can be really quiet. See!”  Bae leaped over to the mirror and slid down its surface. Once seated at the bottom, he pantomimed zipping his mouth closed. 

Belle sighed.  She couldn’t very well waste time kicking him out.   “All right but if you’re in here, you’re going to help me okay?”  

Bae mimed unzipping his lips. “Anything!  I can help! I’m a very good helper!”  

“Can you start my music for me?”  

He beamed at being given such an important job, rushing over to the sound system. Belle took her place in the middle of the floor and nodded.  With exaggerated flourish, the little boy pressed the button.  It wasn’t so bad having an audience Belle thought, especially one as attentive as Bae.  He clapped wildly after every time through. It didn’t seem like as much as a chore on her aching, out of practice muscles, when Bae was right there with his blazing smiles.  They made it through her routine three more times before there was a knock on the door.    

Belle lowered herself from her tiptoes as Bae ran to pause the music. Annoyance grew as she forced herself to deal with the second interruption in ten minutes.

“What do you want?”  The words were out of her mouth before she even saw who was on the other side of the door. She regretted them almost as soon as they were out of her mouth.

The man was clearly distraught, leaning heavily on his gold cane, already trying to peer around the door.

“I’m sorry” They both said at the same time.  

Belle nodded for the man to continue.  His matter was more urgent than some interrupted practice time.

He noticeably gulped.  “Have you seen a little boy?  He’s about this tall” He gestured to the air beside him.

Belle didn’t stop herself from looking back into the room at Bae.  She raised an eyebrow at him before moving out of the doorway.  “Why don’t you come inside?”

As soon as the man had crossed the threshold, there was a shout and a pounding of feet.   “PAPA!”   A little brown blur darted forward to hug his father and knock him off balance.

The man let out a laugh and it was like his face lost years from it.  His eyes seemed to sparkle. Belle suddenly felt self-conscious about her attire. She tried to tug the short leotard skirt down while the incredibly handsome man was distracted.

“What have I told you about running off?  And I thought you knew better than to annoy pretty ladies practicing.”

Belle struggled to ignore the offhand complement, especially when they lingered on her a second too long.  Only she realized they weren’t lingering in any lewd place but on her ankle, wrapped in tape beneath the laces.

“My name’s Raghallach Gold.”  He offered his hand.

Belle nearly felt her heart stop as she offered her own. What were the odds the legend, the “crippled swan” would live in her small town?

**Author's Note:**

> Author’s Note: The American Ballet competition is a very real, terrifying thing for most dancers trying to go professional. Here is the website link. http://americanballetcompetition.com/ Belle’s music is from the ballet sleeping beauty as it is one of the view options the competition allows for use (on the first day of competition).


End file.
